Rays Exercise Joel Peralta’s Option

The Rays have exercised their $2.5MM team option on right-hander Joel Peralta for the 2015 season, MLBDailyDish.com’s Chris Cotillo reports (Twitter link). Earlier today, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reported that the Rays were likely to pick up Peralta’s option and bring the 38-year-old back for his fifth season in Tampa. Peralta is represented by Mark Gilling.

Peralta, 38, has been a reliable relief arm out of the Rays bullpen since 2010, posting a 3.58 ERA, 9.8 K/9 and 3.49 K/BB rate and averaging 67 innings per season. He was somewhat unlucky to post a 4.41 ERA in 2014 given that he had strong peripherals (10.52 K/9, 2.13 BB/9) and an impressive set of ERA indicators (3.40 FIP, 3.11 xFIP, 2.54 SIERA).

Peralta would seem to be well worth the $2.5MM price tag, though there was some speculation that the Rays could decline the option given their limited payroll and a 40-man roster crunch. Tampa Bay also holds club options on Peralta for 2016 and 2017 (each worth $2.5MM) as per the original two-year contract he signed prior to the 2013 season.

I think Peralta started slipping last year. But, I can see him being brought back to help the younger pitchers. That being said, I hope they eat Jose Molina’s contract and get a semi-decent backup to share time behind the plate with Ryan Hanigan.

Anyone else find it odd there are 3 club options on his deal. The Rays have added these options to contracts for Shields, Davis, Peralta, Longoria, Zobrist, Moore and Archer. I’m surprised more teams do not offer these multiple team options when extending players to avoid paying them if/when they start to regress or don’t reach their full potential.